The Age Atomic (11 page)

 

TWENTY-ONE

 

Twelve agents from Atoms for Peace had the machine at gunpoint, a dozen automatic pistols spaced evenly in a semicircle in Doctor X's robotics laboratory. The doctor sagged inside the cage, nearly six pints of blood pooled on the cement around him. On the other side of the lab, the tall computer cabinet was covered with something red and black that was getting sticky as it dried.

Elektro stood in the middle of the circle of agents, his red eyes rolling around them, but the machine appeared to be patient. It was humming something fast and happy. The dozen agents knew they would need more than nine-millimeter ammunition to stop it.

Evelyn McHale floated into the circle of agents, one moment not there and the next there. Elektro's eyes fixed on her blue form as the Ghost of Gotham drifted closer, and the robot stopped humming.

The Director regarded Elektro, tilting her head, her lips parted, like she was trying to read something in the machine. Elektro said nothing and remained still.

“You killed Farnsworth and Richardson,” said Evelyn, finally.

“Hi, boss,” said Elektro.

Evelyn floated to the door of the cage, but stopped just short of the threshold. She ignored the remains of Doctor X on the slab and instead seemed to be examining the edges of the cage door.

“I didn't see this. It hadn't happened.”

“Sorry about the mess,” said Elektro, its head spinning around to watch the Director. “But it's OK, I'm good. I figured out where I went wrong. Third time's the charm, right?”

“The cage. Isolation.” Evelyn floated backwards, her eyes fixed on the structure. “I understand.”

“Say, how about you and me cut a deal? Just imagine what we could do, huh? It's enough to make the mind reel, boss. Ah, boss?”

The Director was now in front of Elektro. The robot's head swiveled back to her as she reached out to touch the spinning red disc in the machine's chest. Her fingers stopped an inch from the glass.

“You understand the principles of the fusor reactor?”

“More than that, lady,” said Elektro. “I got the damn thing working. Our old friend there was close but no cigar, as the saying goes. Hey, you got any cigarettes around here?”

The Director smiled and drifted backwards. “Agent Carter will give you his. Agent?”

Behind her, one of the agents twitched into life. He glanced sideways at his colleagues, then slowly lowered his weapon. He pulled a packet of Lucky Strikes from his jacket and handed them over.

“Much obliged,” said Elektro, flipping the pack open and extracting a cigarette. “Smoking'll kill ya, but who wants to live forever, right?” His eyes flicked to Evelyn's.

“With Doctor Farnsworth and his assistant dead, I need someone to complete work on the fusor reactors and prepare the army for war,” she said.

“Huh,” said Elektro, cigarette dangling from his metal jaw. “I can fix ‘em up but you're gonna need a central reactor to time them all, give them a kick-start.”

“The structure is prepared. It just needs your adjustment.”

The Director smiled, and the end of Elektro's cigarette flared blue. The robot took a drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke that went right through Evelyn's body like it wasn't there.

“Lady, you got yourself a deal. When do I start?”

 

TWENTY-TWO

 

The green door of the workshop shuddered once as it was unlocked, and swung open. In one hand the Corsair carried a tray supporting a pitcher of water and two other, smaller vessels, each containing a dark green liquid.

Rad frowned, realizing the “man in the suit” wasn't the King. He'd hoped for an old fashioned escape – wait until the jailer arrived, then jump him. Simple, but effective. Only the jailer wasn't the little man in the blue velvet suit, it was his robot, which Rad didn't want to tackle. Time for plan B.

Rad stood. “About time.”

The Corsair swung the door closed and walked forward in silence. It placed the tray down on the bench nearest to the three slabs.

“You keeping us here forever?”

The robot released the tray and faced the detective, but made no sound.

“Tell the King I want to see him,” said Rad. The robot didn't move but Rad ignored it, taking the pitcher of water from the tray and pouring himself a glass. The liquid was cool and refreshing, and just reminded Rad how hot it was in the underground workshop.

The Corsair jerked into life, taking one of the small vessels of green liquid and a long pipette from the tray. Filling the pipette, it moved to Kane. Rad backed away, clutching his own drink tightly.

“What is that stuff anyway?” Rad asked. The robot ignored him.

Kane opened his mouth and closed his eyes as the Corsair gently lowered the end of the pipette onto Kane's tongue and squeezed the rubber bulb between two fingers. Kane seemed to stiffen as the medicine was dispensed, and Rad could smell the tang of battery acid.

“How's it taste?” he asked Kane. Kane grimaced like he'd just taken a shot of something strong from under the counter of the cheapest dive in town.

“Pretty smooth,” he gasped. “Could do with a little more tonic.” He laughed, and quickly his laugh turned into a dry cough. He turned his head, and thick green saliva ran down his face from the corner of his mouth.

“You're in a bad way, buddy,” said Rad. He looked at the tray, eyeing the second tiny bottle of green liquid. “Hey, Jeeves, you think I'm taking that and you've got another thing coming to you real quick.”

“Detective, you are indeed fighting fit, fighting it!”

Rad turned to find the King of 125th Street standing in the doorway of the workshop, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket.

“Your majesty,” said Rad, watching the King enter. “I got a feeling you're starting to believe your own legend.”

The King smiled at Rad, but it was an expression devoid of any warmth or emotion; it was just his face making a shape. The Corsair stood to attention and the King nodded.

“That will be all. You may leave the tray.” The robot did not acknowledge the order, but left.

The King walked around the detective until he was at the head of Kane's machine. He stood between Kane and the other machine, and looked between them. Rad glanced at the robot head that was sticking out of the other box, and starting thinking certain things about why the Corsair had brought two bottles of the green medicine.

Now was his chance, but Rad paused. Get out of here? How could they? Kane was injured or ill or both, and clearly in no shape to move either way. He needed to find Jennifer, and fast. Knocking the King over the head wasn't going to help much.

“Mr Fortuna cannot leave here, Rad,” said the King, as though reading his mind. At this Kane craned his head to look at his captor. Then he looked at Rad, his big eyes wide and wet, his expression fearful. Rad wondered what the machine was hiding.

Rad sighed. “How bad is he? Can we get him out of this… this machine?” Rad waved his hand at it.

“Kane cannot sustain his own vital functions,” said the King. “When I picked him up out there, in a dark alley in Harlem, he was dying. I got him here just in time. I had these machines built in case I ever encountered refugees who needed a more complete life support than most as I operated on them, turning them from machine back to man. I hadn't used them yet. Kane was my test case.”

Rad stepped forward, eying the long, green box. It looked like nothing more than a large coffin, the curved upper surface a series of plates, riveted together like the hull of an airship. Looking closely, he could see one horizontal seam was not sealed. The box had a lid.

“So Kane is stuck in this forever? Like someone with polio?”

The King nodded, then moved to the other machine. He took the robotic head and held it between his hands. “Close enough. In order for Kane to be released, I will have to reverse the procedure. My plan was to help the robots of the city become men again. For Kane, it will be the opposite – to survive, he needs replacement parts.”

Rad and Kane exchanged a look.

“Seems like you've been doing that already,” said Rad. The King smiled sweetly but his attention was on the robot in the other machine.

“Look, your majesty, we've got a problem here. You gotta see it from our point of view. You've locked us up, and one of us has gone missing. It all worries me just a little. You got robots outside, you got quite the setup in here, and all the while the Empire State – the whole damn city – is dying. Turning the Ironclad crews back into people is a fine endeavor, don't get me wrong, and maybe if we can work this out then the Empire State can help you out with that. But all this isn't going to mean a damn when we're solid blocks of ice.”

The King looked up. Rad ran a finger around the collar of his shirt. The King must have been cooking inside his blue velvet suit, but the skin of his face was pale and dry.

“Unless,” said Rad, lowering himself back onto the stool, “you turn everyone into a robot. Then the cold won't matter. I really hope I've got you wrong on that, your majesty.”

The King pursed his lips. He let go of the robot's head and turned towards the other door, that one that was hot, the one that led deeper into the theater.

“It's time to show you something, Mr Bradley. Come.”

 

Rad had braced himself for more heat, but the corridor beyond the green door was cooler than the workshop. Rad began to roll the sleeves of his shirt back down.

“I'm afraid to say that the winter of the Empire State is my doing,” said the King, without pausing in his march down the corridor. Rad stopped, one shirtsleeve rolled, the other halfway done. He stood, frozen in the corridor, thinking about the heat and about Kane and about the fact that he hadn't been to the bathroom in a while and kinda needed to go, and whether or not the King had really said what he thought.

“Excuse me?”

The King stopped ahead, at another door – one in heavy blackish metal, reinforced with bars – and turned on his heel.

“Mr Fortuna is important, detective.”

“Ah, well, yeah, he is. I'm sorry, I–”

“No, detective. Kane is important to
everything
. To you, to me, to the city, to the Empire State, and to New York. He is
integral
.”

Rad sniffed. “That a fact?”

“It is a fact, yes,” said the King. “And to save him, I had to make a choice – the city, or the man. And it had to be the man, of course.”

“Of course.” Rad vaguely remembered the old saying that a madman should be humored, and he wondered whether this was actually wise advice. He was alone with the King, who was both older and smaller than him. The King's robotic servant hadn't followed them and, Rad thought, maybe there was a chance the workshop door was still open. So really, all he had to do was stick his fist in the King's face and hightail it back down the corridor, flip the lid on Kane's machine, and they'd be gone.

Assuming the King was lying about Kane, of course. Assuming Jennifer was still alive, somewhere. What Rad really hoped was that Special Agent Jones had gotten out and was heading back now, even as he and King walked down the underground passage, bringing with her that army of agents he knew the Empire State Building had at its disposal.

If only Carson were here.

Rad coughed. If only a lot of things.

“So to save Kane Fortuna, I created my masterpiece, my
pièce de résistance
.”

The King extracted a set of keys on a large black ring from the pocket of his jacket and unlocked the door. Beyond was a light, white and blue, that waxed and waned and seemed to lick at the air like smoke and flame. A light that made Rad's head hurt, that started up a buzzing, a vibration behind his eyeballs.

Rad very much wanted a drink now. Something strong, like the kind of drink he and Kane used to share in Jerry's speakeasy, back when the Empire State was a very small place and they didn't think too hard about the world in case the Empire State pushed back.

“The Fissure has not gone, detective. In fact, you've been talking to it for hours.”

Rad frowned. The King was talking in riddles.

“Kane Fortuna fell through the Fissure while it was unstable. He fell, and it became attached to him, tethered, like the Empire State was tethered to New York. He fell, and like elastic, the Fissure pulled him back. When he returned, the tether – the elastic – snapped. Kane is like a magnet, drawing the energy of the Fissure into him. He
is
the Fissure now. He and it are inseparable – the tether no long connects the Pocket to the Origin, it connects Kane to himself.

“I saw him fall into the city like a shooting star, hot and blue. Had I not found him, detective, not
contained
the power, the Fissure – the power within him – would have destroyed the Pocket entirely. But I got to him quickly, the fallen star burning in an alleyway, the energy consuming him, on the brink of implosion. That is why he cannot leave the machine, detective.”

Rad shook his head. “The machine – the box – is containing the power?”

The King nodded, and gestured to the white and blue light that filled the doorway.

“Not only that,” he said. “After you, Rad Bradley.”

 

TWENTY-THREE

Black and white and blue and white and her eyes burning blue they are blue her eyes are blue cold blue the light at the end of the
 

Marching. The machines are marching. Silver stiff as toys silver and tall like men. Marching marching marching the red light spins and spins. Counting down down the machines count down and then
 

She is there. She stands in the darkness, she
is
the darkness. She spreads her arms and her army marches through the fog through the blue light the blue light her eyes are blue they are cold and blue and she left the world and was dragged back from
 

She is looking. She is looking at me. She is looking at me but she can't see me and she is falling falling falling falling falling falling
 

Run.
 

They are coming. They are marching. The atomic army marches.
 

Run.
 

Her.
 

She will destroy all to destroy herself.
 

It is written.
 

Run.
 

She is coming for me and
 

Kane woke with a start, his throat tight. He'd screamed; after who knew how many days and nights of this, he recognized the signs now – he couldn't touch his face but his skin felt cold and wet, and his neck was sore, as were the muscles that bunched at the back of his jaw. When he licked his lips he tasted the residue of the medicine and something else, something metallic. Blood. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and instantly found the wound in his cheek. He'd bitten it as he slept. He often did.

But his throat was dry. He tried to clear it, but it felt like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, and his larynx rattled and rasped. If he'd screamed, like he thought he had, it wouldn't have been too loud.

He craned his neck, but the machine he was in was so large he couldn't see much. There was no mirror, not like on an iron lung, so all he could do was look at the ceiling, or at a stretch of wall behind him, upside down. When he tried that he could feel himself moving inside the machine.

Kane flexed his fingers, and they seemed to work, although he wasn't sure whether it was his imagination, a muscle memory echo of where he thought his hands should be. Maybe there was nothing left. Maybe he was just a head on a box. Maybe it would have been better if he'd fallen into the gap between universes and not returned.

Kane sniffed, and took a deep breath, then let it out. No, he was all there, he was sure of it. He could breathe, and breathe normally, under his own control. Whatever the machine was doing, it wasn't controlling this basic function. Just to prove the point, he held his breath, held it until it became uncomfortable, then a little more. Then he released it, gulping air as his throat burned. But that was good. And if he could breathe and feel his lungs and feel the walls of his ribcage move, then maybe when he flexed his fingers, his toes, then maybe the rest of him was OK too.

Kane closed his eyes, and maybe he slept. The next thing he was aware of was a click. He opened his eyes and rolled his head to his right, where he saw the King's robot manservant standing over the other machine. It was holding the head of the robot in the other machine – no, it was
stroking
the metal cheek of the other robot with one hand.

Kane licked his lips. He wasn't sure whether he was awake or asleep. He wiggled his toes again, and tried to remember if he'd been able to do that before, and whether that meant anything at all.

“Rest easy.” The Corsair's voice was quiet, a whisper. It was male, and very human, muffled slightly beneath the metal face.

Kane gulped, painfully. He'd never heard the Corsair speak before; he had assumed it didn't.

The robot lying in the other machine twitched, and the head moved slightly as the leather-covered hands of the Corsair continued to stroke its face. And there was a sound, a sigh, an exhalation from the robot in the machine, from the horizontal slot that formed the mouth.

“
Shhhhh
,” said the Corsair. The robot's head twitched again and there was something else, a voice, a whisper behind the metal that Kane couldn't hear. The Corsair leaned over his charge, like it was listening carefully to the faint words. Then it stood straight, and hushed the robot again, and turned around.

Kane closed his eyes, hoping he was quick enough that the Corsair hadn't seen him watching what he felt, strangely, was a private moment. He tried to remember how long the other machine had been occupied, and realized the robot lying within it had appeared soon after Rad arrived.

Kane felt the sweat trickle over his eyelids, and he felt his forehead twitch. There was a gentle sound of glass on glass, and Kane risked a peek. Between narrow lids he saw the Corsair preparing the second bottle of medicine, dipping the long pipette into the bottle, drawing it up, then turning back to the other robot. As Kane watched, it carefully inserted the narrow glass tube into the slot mouth, and squeezed, emptying the dropper.

The robot in the machine jerked once, twice, as it coughed and gasped. Its head turned, suddenly facing Kane.

Through the mouth slot, Kane saw human lips, delicate and dry, maybe female. They moved, and the tip of a tongue stained pale green poked out as it tried to moisten the lips.

Kane coughed in surprise. He rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling as the Corsair, apparently startled, moved to loom over him, bending down low so the flat metal face was right over his.

Kane fought against unconsciousness, but it was no use. And maybe he was asleep already, and this was all a dream, like the flexing of his fingers and the visit from his old friend Rad and the dead woman with the blue eyes. The green medicine.

Green, like the pair of human eyes staring into his own from behind the flipped-up goggles of the Corsair's mask.

Kane cried out in surprise, and then the darkness claimed him once more.